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Geography’s Unique Perspective: The Spatial Perspective Thinking about the spatial arrangement of places and phenomena (physical and human)
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Basic Spatial Questions: The 3 Ws Where is it? Why is it there? What difference does it make?
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U.S. Median Age Source: American Community Survey 2007 http://www.census.gov N
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What Insights Does This Map Offer?
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As of 2007, the percentage of Utahns that are … members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was 68.7 percent of the state's population. Mormons are now a minority in Salt Lake City, while rural areas tend to be overwhelmingly Mormon. … The church's doctrine has a strong regional influence on politics … Historically a majority of Utah's lawmakers have been church members; the effect has contributed to the state's restrictiveness towards alcohol … and gambling. Another doctrine effect can be seen in Utah's high birth rate (25 percent higher than the national average; the highest for a state in the U.S.). The Mormons in Utah tend to have conservative views … and the majority of voter-age Utahns are unaffiliated voters (60%) who vote overwhelmingly Republican. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah
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5 Key Elements of Spatial Thinking Location Distance Space Connectivity Spatial Interaction
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Nominal Location Toponyms = Place Names
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Absolute Location Coordinate Systems Most Common = Latitude and Longitude
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Latitude and Longitude
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Relative Location: Site and Situation Site: physical attributes of a location (terrain, soil, vegetation, water sources, etc.) Situation: location relative to other places and activities
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Tobler’s First Law of Geography "Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.” Waldo Tobler, Swiss-American Geographer and Cartographer
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The Friction of Distance
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Distance Absolute Distance How Far Is It From Minneapolis to Bamako, Mali? 5377 Miles As a Crow Flies
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Distance Relative and Cognitive Distance Time, Effort or Cost - Real or Perceived 26+ hours travel time 14.23 hours flight time Cost = $2652.00 RT
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Time Out: Cheese Map! What Country Is This?
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Space
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Mathematical Space
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Map Data = Points, Lines and Areas
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Cultural Regions 3 Types of Regions? Formal, Functional and Perceptual
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Formal Region A shared trait such as cultural trait or physical trait. –Spanish Speakers
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Functional Region An area that is organized to function politically, socially, economically
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Perceptual Regions Also called vernacular regions
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Global, National, Regional, Local Scales … Percent Foreign Born 2000 Meth Cases 2004-2005 Carbon Emissions 2000
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Distributions Density and Dispersion Density of houses/square mile same or different? Which is dispersed? Which is clustered?
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Pattern Random? Centralized? Linear?
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Spatial Patterns? McDonald’s In-N-Out
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Connectivity
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Patterns? http://users.design.ucla.edu/~akoblin/work/faa/
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Accessibility Northwest Airlines Minneapolis-St. Paul Hub Map
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Globalization The increasing interconnection of people and places and its effects.
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Key Spatial Interaction Concepts Complementarity: matching demand and supply Transferability: ability to transfer goods or ideas Intervening Opportunities: alternative origins or destinations
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Spatial Interaction “The American Diaspora” Hurricane Katrina Migrants Complementarity? Transferability? Intervening Opportunities?
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Spatial Diffusion The spread of some phenomenon over space and time from a limited number of origins.
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Diffusion Is Not Random Distance decay: the farther from the hearth, the less likely an idea will be adopted Time-space compression: ideas diffuse more quickly to places that are highly connected
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Diffusion of H1N1
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